“Oh, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.”

Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.

Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where. And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer.

They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.

The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.

The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.

Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.

There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.

They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.

You smile upon your friend to-day, To-day his ills are over; You hearken to the lover’s say, And happy is the lover. ‘Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never: I shall have lived a little while Before I die for ever.

Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man’s deceiver Was never mine.